This invention relates to devices for the feeding of animals and particularly to a device for the feeding of young pigs or creeps.
In order to more economically raise livestock, such as pigs, it is desirable that young animals be weaned and taught to eat nutritious solid feed as early as possible, since such young animals do not begin to substantially increase in weight until they begin to eat the highly nutritional solid feed.
It is important to provide young, unweaned or just weaned pigs with a trough into which they can get their front legs, since they tend to eat what is between their legs while rooting. The young pigs do not eat much solid feed, especially during the first week or so of learning to do so. Hence, the trough should be large enough to accommodate the front legs of a young pig, whereas an associated feed storage area and actual feeding area within the trough may be relatively small as compared to the trough.
A major shortcoming of many small and, therefore, easily moved prior art animal feeders lies in the juncture of the storage and trough portions. Feeders have historically been comprised of two parts: an upper part used for the storage of the feeds and a lower part used as a trough. The shortcoming lies in that these two portions have historically been joined by means of either gluing or riveting two flat surfaces together. This means of bonding provides good resistance to shear forces that are applied on a line parallel with the two surfaces so connected but provides poor resistance to tensile forces that are applied along a line perpendicular to the joined surfaces. Therefore, tensile forces which are frequently applied to conventional feeders during normal use eventually result in damage to or complete failure in the bonding means rendering such a feeder inoperable after only a short lifespan.
Another problem encountered in conventional pig feeders is that of feed contamination. The economics of raising pigs dictate that the least possible amount of feed be wasted, yet that the feed always be available for consumption when the pigs wish to eat. Therefore, it is desirous to maintain as small amount of feed as possible within the trough portion which can be contaminated by the elements, such as rain or snow, or by dirt, urine, etc. brought into the trough while the pigs are rooting therein, yet still attract the animals to eat therein. Such contaminated food is inedible or cakes and decays quickly, so that it must be manually discarded and fresh food added. Excess feed may also be pushed or blown out of the trough and thereby wasted.
In the present invention it has been found that a containment wall or dam within the trough may be used in conjunction with a variable sized dispensing aperture in the bottom of the storage part of the feeder to limit the amount of feed which will normally flow into the trough before the flow stops or until a pig disrupts the feed therein. This is accomplished by utilizing the natural angle of repose of the feed (that is, the angle which the surface of the feed will form relative to a horizontal line without feed sliding downwardly along the surface), along with limiting the distance between the storage portion dispensing aperture and the trough portion, and properly sizing the height of the dam and dispensing aperture.
It is often advantageous to have a feeder which is easily mounted without tools on a wall or other solid object so that the pigs cannot move or overturn same. It is also advantageous that the feeder be lightweight and easily movable between various feeding areas and can be used in conjunction with or be interchangeable on a common support bracket with an animal watering device.
One conventional type of feeder has utilized an animal actuated feed dispenser which allows the pig to trigger the mechanism to release more feed into the trough portion. A drawback to this system is that the pigs like to play and will actuate the triggering mechanism while there is still feed left in the trough, thereby exposing more feed than necessary to the possibility of contamination or loss. Hence, a simple self-regulating or dampening mechanism for the feeder is desired which will tend to limit the amount of feed in the trough at any time.